Tuesday, June 19, 2007

American't

I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning. "U.S. automakers say the types of vehicles that will get more miles per gallon of gas have features that consumers tend to shun, including four-cylinder engines and stick shifts." A man said it's not a good idea to make these fuel-efficient automobiles because they aren't the types of cars Americans are choosing.

Yeah, well, Americans aren't really known for their sound decision-making skills, are they?

2 comments:

I heard that segment. They had an expert on saying that she thought the real stumbling block was marketing. A lot of their commercials use "machoness" to say you need a big engine or a big truck and they don't want to spend the money to market a fuel efficient vehicle.

I know I have stronger feelings about this than most people, but come on! Just look at the success of the Prius and of Toyota and Honda in general. When I hear Bill Ford's response to how his company plans on competing with these Japanese companies, his fancy words basically amounted to "We're going to continue building big powerful cars that focus on style rather than dream of competing with the fuel economy and reliability of Toyota. Let's pray to God for another Taurus." I don't know what it will take for American car companies to wake up.